Hidden Valves

Dear Dr. Carmody,

Your 9 simple charts and exam questions were a blast of fresh air. And funny!

My hypothesis from far, far away: the FSMB, the ACCME, and the NBME all serve as hidden valves that channel medical education —and thus the practice of medicine— in directions beneficial to Big Pharma.

O’Shaughnessy’s front-page story about the FSMB jumps to include a long excerpt from an expose by journalist John Fauber naming the drug companies that gave FSMB millions to publicize their “model guidelines” re opioids. I suspect FSMB will get a big payoff for the “model guidelines” that constrain cannabis approvals. None of the marijuana reform groups in DC ever provide useful info or analysis to the clinicians.

The ACCME has recently discredited CME modules produced by the Society of Cannabis Clinicians (the SCC’s main source of income).